1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for measuring tire temperatures.
2. Description of Related Art
Large aircraft generate a great deal of heat in their tires during landing, taxiing and taking off. This is due to flexure of the rubber and conduction of heat from the brakes. Because rubber is a poor thermal conductor the heat may build up more rapidly than it can be dissipated, especially on aircraft executing repeated short flights, abnormally long taxi distances or aborted take-offs. If the pilot is unaware of the resultant ever increasing temperature it may cause a hazardous tire burst. To prevent this it is frequently necessary to apply an obligatory safe cooling period between flights, and this can become the limiting factor in the turnround time of the aircraft.
The actual tire temperature depends on many factors such, for example, as
number of previous flights PA1 atmospheric temperature PA1 aircraft weight PA1 taxi distance PA1 use of brakes
A safe obligatory cooling period cannot generally take all these factors into account and is therefore often unnecessarily long.